


every mouth you've ever kissed was just practice

by ghostinghearts



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Freeform, M/M, tiny blink-and-you'll-miss-it drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:54:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinghearts/pseuds/ghostinghearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's a little lost and in love with everyone, and Louis inexplicably feels like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every mouth you've ever kissed was just practice

**Author's Note:**

> (i was reading warsan shire's poetry and found myself writing this despite the fact that i'm in the middle of a longer au fic that i'm stuck on. anyway, this is unbeta'd and was written quite quickly, so I apologize for any and all mistakes, as well as the short length. i just had this floating around in my head and needed to get it out. all italicized bits of poetry are, of course, credited to warsan shire.)

-  
 _Every mouth you've ever_  
 _kissed was just practice. All the_  
 _bodies you've ever undressed_  
 _and ploughed in to were_  
 _preparing you for me._  
-  


Harry has always been fascinated by other people. By their bodies, muscles, bones, cells shifting together to make something whole. He's mesmerized by all of it, the endless possibilities of other people. Of lips and toes and baby hairs and vertebrae marching up a spine. Harry is awed by the human body and all of its subtle nuances, and he's not ashamed of discovering them. Naming them, keeping bits of them to himself. He touches and ghosts and lets the taste of other people dissolve into his skin until it seeps somewhere down in his marrow.

He's never had a penchant for labels or the naming of things, so he memorizes gentle curvature and rough lines and calloused hands matched against soft ones and he can't help but fall just a little in love with everyone, can he? The girl in the coffee shop with the pale skin and fluttering eyelashes, or the quiet, green-eyed boy with the delicate hands. (It's a bit like if Harry were an artist, if he painted, he'd be going around and collecting the colors of people, the bursting yellows and faded lilacs and effervescent golds. Harry's full to the brim of desire mixed with want and a little bit of love, trying to fill something missing.) 

So he's collecting colors, maybe, half-way falling in love with another boy or girl, dancing under the red-blue-green of club lights, when Harry sees him across the room. Their eyes lock instantly, green finding blue. The lights are buzzing and people are melting together around him in a blur of heat and movement and Harry feels pure want shivering up his spine. 

The other boy is small and delicate with pointy features, and there's something soft and pretty about him, about the curve of his smile. Harry looks at him a little harder, wanting to absorb all the details, wanting them to bleed out onto his skin. An unfamiliar feeling pools in his gut, unnameable and unrecognizable and Harry suddenly wants to kiss him, whoever he is, wants to discover, wants to feel.

Harry blinks and suddenly the other boy is gone, disappearing into the shadows of the night. Harry tries not to frown and his heart twitches a little sadly in his ribcage. The feeling doesn't last too long, though, the atmosphere in the room pulling him outward into reality and he's overwhelmed by it, the desire to feel and burn and taste someone else's skin. 

He closes his eyes and takes a pill someone vaguely familiar to him shoves into his palm. He loses himself in the crowd again, because this is what he does best: feeling and sensing so much he nearly bursts with it. 

(He fucks a brown-eyed boy roughly in a bathroom stall later that night, the bass of the music thrumming, reverberating against his heartbeat and tries to forget the color blue.) 

-

It's another night, a Friday this time, and Harry is a little weary and anxious in his skin. It's not like him to feel out of place or out of sorts with himself and he's aching for something to knock his bones upright again. He's in another throng of people, the same club, with the same lights bouncing off his skin. It's familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, with different people weaving in and around his vision. He's lost in it, the feeling of skin and touch all around him. He feels disjointed tonight, like parts of him are missing, lost in the dreamy haze of the evening. 

He's up against a dark-haired boy with colorful tattoos and glowing skin, reveling in the pure and unadulterated feeling of desire coursing through his veins when he sees him again, the boy from the other night. The image of him is blurred and unfocused from Harry's point of view, everything washed out and discolored, but he's still heartbreakingly beautiful. He's wearing a different shirt this time, something a little more low cut, revealing the curvature of collarbones and tanned skin. He's laughing at something a blonde next to him is saying, teeth glowing, throat exposed, and Harry has the strange urge to mark him up, taint him a little, make him hum underneath his lips. 

Harry detaches himself from the dark-haired boy, mumbling a half-assed apology before getting a careless shrug in response. The boy sinks deeper into the crowd and the sentimental, wistful bit of Harry feels a little sad to see him go. Harry shoves the feeling down, though, wanting to find the beautiful boy with the delicate features again. He pushes his way through the throng of bodies, making his way to the other side of the dance floor. Harry loses sight of him for a second before finding him again. He looks up, ice-blue finding the emerald-green of Harry's irises again. Harry doesn't believe in soul mates, he doesn't believe that there's only one person for everyone in a world with 7 billion people in it, but in that moment, he thinks he could. There's that hum of electricity again, that buzz in his skin and fingertips and he feels the softest flutter in his gut.

The boy quirks his eyebrow a little, something curious in his expression. He's even more lovely close up, Harry thinks, all hollowed cheekbones and soft skin. 

(Harry never thinks, just jumps into want and desperate need, full-speed. Harry really, _really_ wants to kiss him, so he does.) 

He doesn't think when he does it, he knows that to anyone else it would probably seem crazy, but Harry found out a long, long time ago that he's not like most people. So he crashes his lips into the other boy's and sinks into the unfamiliar taste. The other boy is kissing him back, rough and needy and when they break apart Harry feels dizzy. He smells of alcohol and faintly of oranges and his eyes are nearly black with want. The boy whispers a “ _do you want to get out of here_ ” into his ear, and although Harry's heard it dozens of times, it's never sounded quite the way it does now, coming from his mouth. 

Harry nods, weaving the other boy's fingers carefully into his own. It feels strangely intimate and more gentle now, whatever it is going on between them, and Harry almost forgets that he's a stranger. They make their way into the hallway outside the bathrooms and Harry wonders, for the first time, where this might all lead. 

“God, I don't even know your name,” whispers the other boy. He's breathless, hair tousled on his forehead from the heat. Harry can feel the music from outside pulsing through his toes. His heart is hammering loudly inside his ribcage, so much so that he's sure that the other boy can hear it. Harry's hands are shaking and he doesn't understand why, because this is just another fuck in a bathroom stall, another body to get lost into, right? (But he looks so lovely underneath the fluorescent light and Harry wants to discover him, wants to know what has built up inside of him, what he's made up of.)

Except Harry doesn't say any of these things, keeps it swallowed down underneath his tongue and wills his hands to stop shaking. “Harry.” 

“Okay. Hi Harry. I'm Louis.” And with that, Louis is pulling him into the bathroom and Harry gets lost in touches and the red-orange of lust and blue blue blue.

-  
 _I don't_  
 _mind tasting them in the_  
 _memory of your mouth._  
-  


Harry's kissed a lot of people, he's touched a lot of people and he's been touched, but Harry swears Louis leaves a mark on his skin. He wakes up the next morning in his own bed with a splitting headache and hardly any memory of the night before, but everything when it comes to Louis is focused and less blurred. He remembers blue and green and yellow light dancing across his skin, remembers Louis biting his shoulder before coming and the bright blue of his eyes. He remembers the feel of Louis against his skin, how he got lost in it, in their bodies together, muscles flexing, backs arching. It probably hasn't even been twenty-four hours but Harry wants that dizzying and addicting feeling of wonder back again. Harry's not naïve, he knows he'll probably never see him again, but, still. The night leaves a strange imprint on his mind.

He fixes a pot of tea and showers and makes his way through his day. He goes to his classes, reads, eats, but his mind wanders, thinks of lips bitten red, gripping fingertips onto hips, of racing heartbeats.  
And although it's dumb and probably pointless Harry makes a nearly unconscious decision to go again, something inside him hoping to find Louis. 

-

It's loud and already intense when Harry arrives. It's somewhere close to midnight and there are people everywhere, people kissing and laughing and dancing and touching and the familiarity of it is comforting, safe, even. Harry knows and revels in this world full of desire and passion and lust. For a while he doesn't think, not even about Louis. He kisses and is kissed and forgets, and it feels wonderfully distracting, really, until he sees Louis in the back corner of the club, legs halfway wrapped around another bloke's waist. They're kissing desperately, all needy and heated. Harry feels irrationally jealous and inexplicably upset, anxiety building in his veins. It doesn't make sense, him caring so much; he suddenly wants to steal Louis away and maybe rough him up a little, make him his. 

(So Harry does like he always does, never thinks and lets his instinct, libido, _whatever_ , take control. He pushes his way through backs and limbs, through skin and dozens of beating hearts and kisses Louis, full on. The bloke from before cries out angrily, but Harry flips him off and Louis just _curls_ into Harry's mouth and fists at his chest and it's just. Overwhelming. Harry's brain sort of short-circuits when Louis rolls his hips into Harry's, hands making their way to Harry's curls, pulling. Louis tastes like beer and a million other people, but he also tastes of that familiar orange and it's quickly getting to be almost too much at once, sensory overload. It's Louis that breaks the kiss first this time, chest heaving, legs now wrapped around Harry's waist, eyes glowing cerulean.

“Fuck, curly, you're killing me,” Louis says, running his hand through Harry's hair again. Harry closes his eyes at the touch, basks in it, and Harry's been kissed and touched and felt and even _loved_ , but Louis feels like electricity and a little bit like home.

“Likewise.” They pause for a moment, trying to catch their breaths. Everything is still loud and intense around them, life and other people moving on, still existing. A kaleidoscope of color and light is whirring in between and around them and it feels like a separate reality. Louis is painted red and soft underneath the glowing lights and Harry thinks that he's already done for, already beyond the point of return.

This time, they make it to Harry's flat. It's less rushed; it's the fluttering and tingle of nervous laughter, more careful, less desperate, but new and terrifying all the same. Louis finishes within seconds of Harry and it should be awkward in the after, but it isn't. Harry should be already falling out of love out-of-lust, but he isn't.

Louis just curls into Harry's side afterward, quiet, tracing letters onto Harry's hipbone. He's sporting two bruises underneath his jaw, blooming yellow into black. He looks blissed out, and more vulnerable this way, less fearless away from the intensity of before—but also so, so, beautiful. So much so that Harry's heart jumps a little in his chest. 

(Harry knows, theoretically, it could be the sex talking, he knows that he's good at the falling before looking, but. It just. Feels different. Steady. Safe.)

And they fall asleep like that, tucked in Harry's tiny mattress, under the white of the moon, wrapped around each other, and Harry feels a steady warmth in his bones.

-  
 _Was it a long journey? Did it_  
 _take you long to find me?_  
 _You're here now, welcome_  
 _home._  
-  


**Author's Note:**

> (feel free to give any feedback over @ tumblr, where you can find me at goldenholdens. or to gush a bit over how endearing one direction is, because, _honestly_. or something)


End file.
